Youth Services of Tulsa's Runaway 5K

I just got back from Youth Services of Tulsa's Runaway 5K. What a great experience! The 5K is a benefit for the Youth Services of Tulsa, to raise awareness of Safe Place. Safe Place is a program which offers youth in need immediate help at 164 sites all over Tulsa, including Tulsa Transit stations, QuikTrip gas stations, and fire stations. If a young person has run away, or needs safety from conflicts at home, danger at home or with peers, or from substance abuse issues, Safe Place locations provide immediate help. With over 300 participants, the event was a huge success!

At the 5K, I discussed my goals for my year as Mrs. Oklahoma with director of development, Barry Maxwell. Barry was very encouraging and receptive. I explained to Barry that I wanted to help Youth Services in whatever way I could -- in whichever roles YST needs me. I shared that being Mrs. Oklahoma is based on my community service platform, and that this is an opportunity to be a local celebrity for a year to promote a cause that means the world to me. I'm pretty sure that I broke the pageant stereotype for one woman, and that helps so much in what we do. There is such a stereotype out there and there is the only one way to break it...by showing people that we are here to serve(!) and that we have a lot more to offer than outer beauty.

I also spoke with Mayor Kathy Taylor of Tulsa. She and I talked about divorce support for youth, education in the Tulsa area, and youth issues in general. I explained that all of these issues overlap. Children of divorce are statistically more likely to have self-esteem issues, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and children of divorce act out in a number of ways. Gang involvement and teen pregnancy are shown to be related to parental divorce. Children who have problems with their family life and family-identity are more likely to make poor choices. One out of three children of divorce drop out of high school. Banana Splits and similar programs are preventative. Not all children of divorce are in trouble, so clearly, it doesn't have to be that way! My goal is to help children to choose the road less traveled, to choose good decision-making over bad, and to understand how valuable they are and how much they have to offer the world. Mayor Taylor invited me to call her office and set another appointment to discuss these issues. Maybe then we'll take a picture without running a 5K just a few minutes beforehand! It was neat to see the mayor giving back to Tulsa youth in this way.

In the US I believe that all of us have the same opportunities; we simply don't have the same support systems. My grandmother on my mother's side came to the US from the Philippines because she believed that this was the land of opportunity. With hard work, she believed all things are possible. As a female graduate student in mathematics whose gender has only helped me and never hurt me, I tend to agree. But this does not mean that 'success', however you define it, is equally easy for all of us. I hope to provide children who have little to no social support systems with more social support. I believe that those support systems, whether they be in our homes, churches, or community organizations like YST, can make the difference between an A student and a C student, a confident young person and an angry young person, a grounded, community-minded adult or one who has no experience in self-care, physically, financially, intellectually or spiritually. It is my hope that we can help these kids by giving them the social support and confidence they need to see the many opportunities before them and move forward to make their impact on the world. I don't want kids to just get by -- I want them to reach or exceed their potential. I want them to have extraordinary lives of purpose, service, and hope. I was very happy to see that so many staff members, volunteers, and Tulsans at the Youth Services 5K have the same vision.